Liz Mahoney

It was John Lennon’s 71st birthday on the ninth of October. As a young woman I silently acknowledged the date every year. Now the ninth of October reminds me of what it was like to be young and messy when the witty Beatle was still alive.

To my way of thinking, Lennon was so unmistakably “anti” all the right things, like war and boring people.

Do this simple test: do you prefer Lennon to Macca? If you don’t know the right answer, look in the “disassociated youth file” along with Morrison, Joplin et al. Some of us eventually grew out of these heroes but they were damned useful at the time when the rest of the world seemed so archly superior and had, apparently, got their shit together.

JL has been gone 30 years, for half of my life. I remember how I cried on his death day although I don’t recall the actual date. It was a JFK and a Princess Di day for sure.

Now people are saying the same about Steve Jobs.

The festival of mourning amazes and delights me, a Macophile since 1984. I’m so happy that SJ is being celebrated on webs strung from every Apple and PC tree.

Let’s hear it for the mouse and the Apple operating system! Every PC user should get down on their knees and thank Jobs for what he delivered them from: a totally inflexible PC system operated by keyboard commands. And if they don’t know, they damn well ought to know whom to thank. SJ is so more than just the iPod and iPad.

Jobs’s early Macs saved our ma and pa newspaper business in the 80s when we were struggling with larger competitors trying to roll our small craft. With the Apple Macs akin to the nippier ships of Queen Elizabeth I, we were able to outwit the ungainly “galleon” newspaper chains trying to grab our advertising base.

We survived the competition by laying out our tiny tabloid on a Mac II.

And Jobs went on to craft more and more elegant solutions like my MacBook Pro that I love to bits.

I'll always be thanking Steve.

And remembering  John.